Publisher's Weekly Review

Under the aegis of the Junior Publishers Program and with the help of the nonprofit organization Paintbrush Diplomacy, a group of high school students from the San Francisco Bay Area have edited, designed and produced an ``International Collection of Children's Art.'' Contributors from 19 countries who range in age from seven to 17 offer vignettes from their storytelling traditions. Thus scenes from well-known tales--Pandora's Box, Puss in Boots, The Fox and the Grapes--alternate with glimpses of lesser-known myths from countries as diverse as Lithuania, Nigeria and Burkina Faso. The paintings and drawings range from the crude and clearly childish to the exquisite; the works of some Indian and African artists show a particularly well developed sense of color, mood and design. The accompanying texts vary in length from a few words to several explanatory paragraphs. Unfortunately, the fuller treatments are often devoted to stories apt to be already familiar to Western readers, while many intriguing illustrations from far-flung lands appear with captions too abbreviated to evoke a glimmer of the myths from which they are drawn. All ages. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved